Check Out the CEO's Paycheck

As images of holiday bonuses dance through our heads, we thought it was a good time to look at the compensation of a handful of the semiconductor industry's CEOs. We found packages that ranged from less than $3 million to nearly $20 million.

To put that in perspective, the average pay of 327 CEOs of the biggest companies in the U.S. was $12.3 million in 2012, including salaries, bonuses, perks, stock awards, stock options and other incentives. That's according to research conducted by the AFL-CIO. The worker's union also reported that the CEO of an S&P 500 Index company made, on average, 354 times the wage of a rank-and-file U.S. worker in 2012.

There is no legislation capping pay for executives in what IC Insights says are the countries that produce most of the world's semiconductors -- Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States. However, several other countries are considering limits to executive pay.

In the U.S. the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed in September a new rule that would require public companies to disclose the ratio of the compensation of its chief executive to the median compensation of its employees.

In November, Swiss voters rejected a proposal to curb executive compensation. The "1:12 -- for fair wages" initiative, which proposed capping executive salaries at 12 times the level of the lowest paid employee, was rejected by 65.3 percent of voters. It failed to win majority support in any of the country's 26 districts, CNN reported .

European Union officials are working to limit bonuses for bankers earning more than 500,000 euros ($678,000) a year, limiting bonuses to twice the executive’s annual salary. The proposal would affect more than 35,000 bankers around the world and is being challenged by the British government.

In Germany, Europe’s largest fiscally solvent country, officials vowed to take up pay inequity in the next parliamentary session. Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that “exorbitance cannot be allowed in a free and socially minded society.”

As of September 2013, CEOs of French state firms cannot make more than 20 times the salaries the lowest-paid employee earns. Thus salaries are capped at around $600,000, NPR reported. Meanwhile, Dutch officials announced new legislation that would cap golden parachutes at a maximum of 75,000 euros ($98,000).

With this perspective we invite you to click through the following pages to read what some of the top semiconductor companies are paying their chief executive officers.

Yes they are big, but not nearly so breathtaking as some high tech execs such as Oracle's Larry Ellison who reportedly took home nearly $100 million in 2012. Ka-ching!

Depending what "doing well" means, all you're saying is that keeping the stock value high is good business for the shareholder. I also benefit from that strategy, when it comes to my 401K and other plans, but that doesn't mean this strategy works well for the companies' employees.

Companies that were once the envy of the world, as innovative technology powerhouses, have a strange way of becoming shadows of their former selves. HP is in the news these days, but surely you can think of many others. I can.

Here's a simple example of CEO thinking. There's a rule of thumb that says, if you aren't #1 or #2 in a particular field, get out of that business. The objective is not to stay in and strive to become the #1 or #2, but divest yourself of that work, employees and all. I'm not saying that this isn't a good strategy for share value, it may well be, but I find it impossible to be pollyanish about what this means to the employees. Which is what is being discussed here.

Often means, in this context, that a CEO primarily obsessing over the stock value is only secondarily, if at all, concerned about the employees. As a matter of fact, depending how long this person plans to remain CEO, he may not even be concerrned about making sound long-range strategic decisions. Just do what it takes to bring the stock price as high as possible, in the near to middle term, then retire and quick sell the stock.

US auto companies were a good example of this sort of short-term thinking, starting in the 1970s and on into the 1990s. It bordered on comical, were it not for the negative effects on the US economy. It wasn't JUST the unions.

The company I used to work for had a CEO who told us that his "primary concern was the shareholder." Soon after which, he sold off our division. Some 18 years later, our division is still doing great, as part of the company that bought it. Point being, keeping a profitable division going was not the original CEO's concern. Stock value was.

It matters what a person's objectives are. I feel no compulsive need to make excuses for people who are ludicrously overcompensated. That includes CEOs of large corporations, Hollywood stars, or star pro "athletes."

I worked for HP during the 50th anniversary. Bill and Dave were retired but the company was still run the "Bill and Dave way". Management was proud that no one, not one single employee, had ever been laid off in the history of the company.

Obviously the CEO's since then didn't read the "HP Way" or figured they knew better than the founders. What a shame.

Bit of a contrast to todays managers who can't wait to lay workers off - it helps the stock price....

"Although I don't hold with huge CEO salaries I don't for one minute think you should distribute it to the workers - it would amount to a few hundred dollars each at most. But there has to be a fairer way of doing things."